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Our English learning histories

EN2707 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 22:34:21 CST

Our students have written their English learning histories. We have students from Hong Kong, China and France. They all told fascinating stories of learning English as a second or foreign language. Come and share their joys and struggles in their learning.

All language learning histories have been moved to a new site Language Learning Histories, come visit us!

Langscape projects 08-09

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:51:07 CST

Our students explored different aspects of language use in different parts of Hong Kong. Come travel with us and read/see/hear the different languages used in Hong Kong!

Mongkok	Central	Wan Chai Market
Tsim Sha Tsui	Mongkok	Central
Shatin	Tsim Sha Tsui	Lan Kwai Fong
Sham Shui Po	Tung Chung	Sheung Wan
Kowloon Bay	Tsim Sha Tsui	Happy Valley
Sham Shui Po	Lan Kwai Fong	Mongkok

Hong Kong Flaneurie

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:50:44 CST

This course aims to raise students' proficiency in written English. Students will learn to write a variety of genres including descriptive essays, narrative essays, expository essays, academic essays, as well being introduced to a number of more specialist genres in journalistic and business writing. Particular emphasis is placed on accuracy of written work. Students will also read and discuss different types of writing and develop strategies for faster reading and better comprehension. The course is run in a 'workshop' mode in which students read and comment on one another's work and publish their work on the Internet.

Mongkok 3

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:48:29 CST

Hong Kong Langscape

Why Langscape?
Language is all around us. To put a very simple definition, language is a set of symbols used for communication. However, it is so interesting to discover that Hong Kong as a very small city, we can spot out differences in the languages we use among different districts or even between the beginning and the end of the street. As suggested by Salikoko S Mufwene, “the history of humankind language speciation has basically been a consequence of how internal variation within a language has been affected by migrations of its speakers and additionally by the different contacts the relevant populations have had among themselves (Trudgill's position) and with speakers of other languages in their new, colonial ecologies (Mufwene 2005, 2007, 2008)” (Mufwene, 2008:254). There comes “Langscape”, which means the language of landscape, and this is what we would like to investigate.

Why Mongkok?

We choose Mongkok as our target for Langscape. Located in Kowloon Peninsula, it is one of the popular districts where locals, most likely the grass roots and teenagers, will spend their weekend strolling around and doing shopping in bargain when compared with other famous shopping spots like Tsim Sha Tsui or Causeway Bay. In addition, the Ladies’ Market, which is actually Tung Choi Street in Mongkok, is famous among tourists and even regarded as "Kowloon’s Version of Stanley Market”. Its special status of revealing a strong local culture but at the same time, attracting dozens of tourists to come arouses our curiosity to look into the use of languages there. Can a grass-roots district conserve a strong sense of culture of Hong Kong but also help showing Hong Kong is a multilingual city where tourists will find comfortable when travelling around? We leisurely strolled in Mongkok on weekdays for this Langscape and tried to see how language of Mongkok looks like. Nathan Road, Ladies’ Market and Pedestrian Street at Sai Yeung Choi Street South are well-known spots in Mongkok. However, will there be differences in language use among those places? We had also been to shopping centres in MongKok to explore the language they use to draw attention of passers-by. The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs will also be analyzed thoroughly in this project.

Listening to Mongkok

Strolling along the streets in Mongkok, hardly can you find a place which is peaceful. Mongkok is so crowded that we could not even hear what our counterparts just next to you said. To be more precise, Mongkok is filled with cacophony of noise. There are different kinds of sounds that you can hear like baby girls screeching on the street and their mothers tried to calm them down her baby by gentle whisper or “doot” sounds along the road as there are lots of cars and vehicles on the street. It is what a city should look like – a mix of sounds of human and vehicles.

In Mongkok, you can always hear people using Cantonese to communicate with each other. Along Nathan Road, however, you can see teenagers, adults, children and elderly of different races. It seems that Mongkok is a place which attracts people from all corners of the world. With the increasing number of tourists in Hong Kong, we use English when we would like to chat with foreigners while Putonghua when talking to our great compariots from Mainland China. Walking in the Ladies' Market, "have a look" is the "slogan" the stall owners often shouted out when they would like to ask the tourists to have a look at their products and with their so-so English language standard, they tried hard to persuade the foreign tourists to buy the stuff. "The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is an inalienable part of the People's Republic of China" but it is quite funny that we Hong Kongers will become "alienable" when we use Putonghua. To Hong Kong people, Putonghua is just to make it a little bit not look like Cantonese. However, it is rather a concern whether they understand or not.

Music is a very important element in life. Not only is music a form of art which people can appreciate, but it also reflects the lifestyle of teenagers and communicates their moods with others nowadays. Given that MongKok is a place full of teenagers, it is not surprising that shops usually sell products which are catered for teenagers. Therefore, they usually play recent hip hop and R&B music loudly as a way to provide teenagers with a dynamic and red-blooded environment. American hip hop or Jay Zhou's R&Bs are just some examples but the variety of songs the shops play can reveal the fact that the teenagers nowadays would accept the songs from different countries whenever they feel the melodies are great and also they find the languages are familiar to them. It is on one hand attracting more teenagers to get inside of the shop, but on the other hand, we think that it is a kind of "barrier”. Normally, we seldom see people who are middle-aged walking into the shop and the reasons behind are that this kind of music to them can be a distraction and they may think it is as noisy as animal roaring. Therefore, they are not interested in this kind of shop. The boundary of music should be indefinite and can travel for decades, but music with strong beats and the unfamiliar languages to them have formed gaps among generations.

Shops can play music, either do mobile phones. Nowadays, mobile phones become common gadgets of Hong Kong people and you can always hear mobile phones ringing along the street. Thanks to the advanced technology, people can now use the edited MP3 ringtones instead of the old-fashioned built-in telephone ring. Some may like using peaceful midi to fight against the pop music culture in Hong Kong. No matter what kind of music they use for their ringtones, individuals like to stand out from one another if they have a chance, especially for teenagers who would like to strive for their own independence and uniqueness.

Street snacks play an important role in Hong Kong eating culture. Fish balls, Gei Dan Jai (a Hong Kong style waffle) and pepper and eggplant stuffed with shrimp meat are so familiar to Hong Kong people. You can smell them all along the streets in Mongkok of course, but you can also “hear” the sounds they have! It has already been mouth-watering to you when you hear the frying process far away. You would want to get closer when you hear the “chatter” of oil at such a high temperature. The clink of coins of the shop was just so frequent and clear when you walk along the street as there must be one nearby on the way you are walking.

It is just a total different experience when compared with sitting in a cafe with soft jazz music – it is relaxing but you can never experience what the whole city actually looks like. The different sounds we hear can make us know more about the culture we experience. It is diversifying as you may hear people speaking different langugaes, songs in ferent languages, and also "hear" the special local culture you can never experience elsewhere.
Reading in Mongkok

We often exposed to different “chinglish”, which can be regarded as directly translating Chinese into English or using the Cantonese Pinyin. For instance, people will use "add oil”, which is a direct translation from the two Chinese characters we usually use to encourage someone to “keep it up”. "English has always been a sponge language” and "has travelled so far around the world and mixed with so many other cultures and has absorbed influences from all those other cultures” (Kamel, 2008), and Hong Kong has gradually developed her own set of English in a mix of Chinese Culture. We can see how "chinglish” penetrated into MongKok. As you can see in this photo, there are many signs and advertisements posting in the stalls selling clothes and accessories. Near the entrance of lady’s market, there’s a shop selling ladies’ wear. It is not surprising that they have to display and explain what kind of clothes they are selling. However, when you look at this picture, you can see that they used the word “womenswear” to illustrate that the kind of clothing. It is not proper enough, though tourists may generally understand what the stall is selling. One interesting we also discover is that they use three different languages in the sign. They added a sentence in Japanese, though we could not determine whether they were correct or not, in order to draw the attention of the Japanese tourists.

As a grass-roots district, we could spot some defects in the language use. The wrongly spelled "shoes" as "shose" may tell the language proficiency of the stall owners. The "long" and "short" in the banner actually wants to tell the customers that they are selling T-shirts and long sleeves shirts T-shirts. You could also see from the photo that the shop did not want customers to bargain. However, instead of using the word “no bargain”, they used the word “no discount”. Although the effect of using this word is the same as using the word “no bargain”, the actual impression would be different. Let’s say, if we use the word "no bargain”, the customer would know that the price would not be lowered even if you spend hours persuading the owners. However, if we use the word “no discount”, tourists may interpret it as the shopkeeper did not have any special offer to the customers. They may think that the goods are expensive and eventually go to buy things in other shops which offered customers with discount. As a place where tourists may gather around, it is rather disappointing that we could never get the actual meaning of the banner through English.

At night, Nathan Road is illuminated with neon lights. It reminds us "the country with sun that never sets”. There are numerous advertisements and you can find them on the bus, taxi or on the buildings. It just appeared everywhere! This phenomena can be explained when you see people who are speeding on the street like a crazy Ferrari. People will just take a glance at the advertisements, and it is somehow necessary for the streets to be flooded with advertisements.

We read books, but we also read the design on clothes. Inside the shopping
centre Trendy Zone, we found out T-shirts with different words printed on it.
The words are spectacular and special. Hardly can you imagine why people want to buy a T-shirt with the word “toilet” and its logo. It is, in fact, a special shop which caters for teenager’s needs – to stand out and catch others’ attention.

When you read through Mongkok, it is not difficult to discover that this busy city tries to catch your attention through everything you may come across. However, it seems that the language use cannot show support.
In the eyes of tourists
As a place where tourists would love to walk around, we had a chat with tourists walking in the Ladies' Market and see how they felt about the language use in Hong Kong. Question: Do you think there is enough English in MongKok and Hong Kong to help your travel? Why or why not?

Tourist 1 (Belarusian)	No problem generally but I think it’s not enough for shopping.
Tourist 2 (Nigerian)	Not enough. I find it difficult to travel right from the airport to market. And there is a lack of English for transportation. People don’t speak English well.
Tourist 3 (A student from California)	Yes. I am able to get around. It’s better than in China. I like Hong Kong very much.
Tourist 4 (Indian)	Ya….Enough. We can have conversation and communicate with Hong Kong people and we can interact with them.
Tourist 5 (Australian)	Well….. Not enough everywhere!!! You see (He pointed everywhere inside the Ladies’ market).

A new Langscape of Mongkok?
People living hundred years ago might have never thought that a small fish village can eventually grow into a metropolis as we see today. Mongkok might never appear in the major history of Hong Kong but now it is renowned among tourists visiting Hong Kong because of the hustle and bustle Nathan Road or the Ladies’ Market. Sounds of Mongkok we hear can help tourists realize how its culture looks like. While the fact that busy roads and streets with cars and pedestrians travelling to and fro reflects how busy this district is, different people staying in this small city shows the diversifying culture. Yet, when we come to a closer look at the language use, it is not difficult to find out that misuse of English can be found all around. Tourists will find the place too unfamiliar as it is not easy to find out clear instructions in English and people are communicating with languages they never come across. How can Mongkok strike a balance between the local culture and the side facing the whole world? It seems that we have to do something in this small area. It is not demanding, but it can help make a significant improvement. Local language can be kept but a brochure which lists out the translation of commonly seen Chinese characters in Ladies’ Market can be prepared and delivered and whenever the tourists are in doubt, the brochure can be a "dictionary” for them to understand the things that they are encountering. Language is all around us and Mongkok sets a good example which languages integrate with lifestyles of people living there and culture of Hong Kong. Improvement can be made and this Langscape should never be changed.

Bibliography

DiscoverHongKong – All About Shopping – Street Markets. Avaiable: http://www.discoveryhongkong.com/eng/shop/market/index2.jhtml [2008, October 24]

Kamel, Deena (2008, August 19). A language without limits; Hinglish, Chinglish and Arabizi among variations as spoken English undergoes a revolution in the GTA. Toronto Star,A.3. Retrieved October 25, 2008, from International Newsstand database.

Mufwene, Salikoko S (2008). Colonization, population contacts, and the emergence of new language varieties: A response to Peter Trudgill. Language in Society, 37(2), 254-259. Retrieved October 24, 2008, from Academic Research Library database.

The Basic Law. [Online]. Available: http://www.basiclaw.gov.hk/en/basiclawtext/chapter_1.html [2008, October 24]

Lan Kwai Fong

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:47:38 CST

Langscape - Lan Kwai Fong

Place: Lan Kwai Fong, Central
Date: 20 Oct 2008
Time: afternoon

The content of our langscape will be divided into four main areas, which are as follows.

ALL About LAN KWAI FONGLan Kwai Fong has been famous for its multicultural feature for long. That the street appears as L-shape and contains a rectangle-liked lane also makes it distinct from the rest in Hong Kong. However, it may be a complete mystery to many people that why and also how Lan Kwai Fong has evolved into such a cosmopolitan place over the years.

In fact, Lan Kwai Fong was overwhelmed by hawkers very long time ago. However, the impact of the Second World War completely changed its history at that time. At the early stage, it used to be known as Mui Yan Hong as many arranged marriages were initiated there. It was not uncommon as there have been so many traditions and constrains in the Chinese society that young people were not able to choose their loved ones to marry in the past. Despite all these, in the 1980’s, a huge amount of money was invested in Lan Kwai Fong by a Western businessman. Owing to such drastic changes, Lan Kwai Fong soon developed to a popular attraction where both foreigners and Hong Kongers like to gather there at nights especially during weekends.

An interesting fact about Lan Kwai Fong is that what you see as well as what you feel in the daytime and at night can be drastically different. In the daytime, Lan Kwai Fong resembles a normal street like the others in Hong Kong. It is so quiet and pleasant that it gives you a feeling of being in the countryside. In contrast, the effect of the lighting, music and also crowds and crowds of people hanging around the street at night makes you feel excited. When you enter one of the pubs or bars, you can see many people of different cultures dance in front of you with various kinds of music behind. The atmosphere around you is so irresistible as if you were attending a prom that you would never want to leave.

Surface Culture of LAN KWAI FONG

"The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shop signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban conglomeration." (Landry & Bourhis, 1997:25)

What we see?

Standing in Lan Kwai Fong, you can probably notice that there are a significat number of signboards and advertising billboards surrounding you. Although they are in different shapes and colors, they are both fascinating and absorbing because of their unique designs and meanings. Besides, standing in front of those bars, restaurants or even flower shops, you can easily find that the texts of menus or prices marks are bilingual (usually English and Chinese) or even trilingual(e.g. Japanese, Thai and Korean).

What we hear?

Walking up and down the Lan Kwai Fong, we could constantly hear the sounds of operating the cars or pressing the bells. Also, we heard different pitches of voices while pedestrians were whispering, chatting or laughing. Some of you may find those sounds annoying and vexing but the loyal fans of Lan Kwai Fong will surely enjoy such lively environment! In their opinions, a variety of sounds and voices represent energy which is what they long for!

What we speak?

Undoubtedly, we use English to communicate with people in Lan Kwai Fong most of the time. For instance, we spoke English to invite foreigners to be our interviewees. Some foreigners spoke with a strong accent as they come from different countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. Therefore, we had difficulty jotting down all their points at times! Luckily, they were willing to repeat their points or even wrote it down for us! The picture shows you what the namibian wrote as well as drew for us!

Give Me 5!

Summerised by the following two questions:

Q1: How do you feel about Lan Kwai Fong?
Q2: What language(s) do you usually hear in Lan Kwai Fong?

A visitor form Belgium
Q1: Very Nice! Wonderful! I don't want to go once I came here!

Q2: Nothing else besides English.

A Foreigner who has lived and work in Hong Kong for 7 years.

Q1: Great Place!

Q2: English, Cantonese and Putonghua.

A local resident, an assitant of this cake shop

Q1: Most of the tourists come for sightseeing and they usually like taking photos here.

Q2: Mostly Putonghua.

A visitor from Namibia

Q1: Excellent!

Q2: English, German and Afrikaans.

A local resident, a shopkeeper

Q1: Lan Kwai Fong would be lively at night or on public holidays! It's completely different form the daytime! I think most of the people come here to have a drink with friends.

Q2: Putonghua and Cantonese.

Having done different interviews, we can analyse the languages in Lan Kwai Fong in details.
First of all, it shows that English plays an important role in Lan Kwai Fong. People who come from different countries always use English as the tool of communication. They share or exchange ideas with others by speaking or writing in English since English has been considered as an international language.

Secondly, as Lan Kwai Fong represents the multicultural of Hong Kong, different languages can be found in this place easily. We have mentioned that most of the signboards and billboards are bilingual in English and Chinese or even trilingual to satisfy the needs of different people.

Thirdly, using Putonghua has become a trend in Lan Kwai Fong in these few years. Since more and more mainlanders come and visit Hong Kong frequently, Lan Kwai Fong has been one of the attractive sites for mainlanders to experience the western culture. Therefore, we can see that businessman and shop assistants are forced to learn and speak in Putonghua in order to cater to the market and the popular demand.

Deep culture of LAN KWAI FONGUndoubtedly, Lan Kwai Fong is such a special district that you can see different nationalities including Australian, American, German and British gathering in the same street. When we were walking along Lan Kwai Fong trying to find interviewees, we noticed that there were quite a number of foreigners sitting outside the bars and holding beers on their hands. Some of them were joking to each other with smile on their faces while some were just looking straightly at the street and watching passersby came across without any facial expression. They all seemed so relaxed and comfortable as if they were in their own countries or even in their own houses, but in the reality, they were not.

Among those bars, not only the customers, but also the waiters and owners over there are mainly foreigners. The western culture of pubs and bars and the westerners have taken place in Lan Kwai Fong. According to a research conducted by NOP, pubs are a firm fixture in the social life of most British people. Almost 2/3 of British adults went to a pub at least once in June. We have seen a young writer ,who was probably a British or American and spoke only English, sit and talk to a foreign lady very closely. We then interviewed this lady and found out that although it was like they have known each other for a long period of time, she was only a tourist who came to visit her son and would not stay long. Passing by all the bars and pubs, we found that we were overwhelmed by English according to what we hear, speak and see in Lan Kwai Fong. It really felt like we have stepped into another country since seldom locals appeared there during the daytime.

Steve stated that Lan Kwai Fong has boomed to the point where one Hong Kong resident told him it's attracted too many foreigners, and residents don't like it. Or, as Yogi Berra put it, "Nobody goes there anymore -- it's too crowded."( Burgess, 2004:38) We must say, English does play an extraordinary role in today's Lan Kwai Fong. However, after deeply and cautiously observing the district, it is not difficult to see some familiar faces and voices shown inside the bars and pubs.

Young professionals, who dressed formally in black and white suits and was carrying briefcases, gossiped with their colleagues in both Chinese and English with a drink in front of them. Though we couldn't clearly hear what they were talking about, it is easy to imagine that they were spilling out the unfairness they faced in their companies and sharing their opinions about their bosses or heavy workloads they shouldered with their colleagues. Obviously, they portray Lan Kwai Fong as a place that allows them to release stress and express their own feelings after a whole day of studious work. Apart from the white-collar, some of the teenagers also love to hang out with friends in Lan Kwai Fong. Two female residents, who brought a lovely doggie in a bar and sat face to face, talked in Chinese and laughed so loudly that I was sure people in the street corner were able to hear. Both of them grinned happily and we can tell that they were enjoying and having fun there. Therefore it is not so true to say that Lan Kai Fong is a district that only for foreigners. We can never ignore the needs of the local people, especially the younger generations.

Special Features of Lan Kwai Fong And Its FutureLAN Kwai Fong is a place that is full of distinctive features of different cultures. When it comes to night-out, it's probably one of the most, if not the most, popular and well known area in Hong Kong. There are over 100 bars, clubs and restaurants located in the district and they offer diverse choices to suit all tastes and serve thousands of local people and tourists coming from different parts of the world. Numerous types of restaurants and bars, from Italian to Indian, from Japanese to Thai and indeed Chinese, fascinate tourists that they all would manage a visit no matter how long they stay in Hong Kong. All of these bars and restaurants are so unique that they have their own styles and even languages. For instance, you can hear Indian music while dining in a Indian restaurant, but when you leave and enter another bar, you may hear music of a competely different kind, like pop and rock music.

As the icon of night-life in Hong Kong, Lan Kwai Fong is also popular for locals having drinks with friends after a hard day's work. Business people tend to swap gossip with colleagues and youngsters love to have fun with their friends here. Two tiny streets with a large amount of people and all these bars and restaurants, you can imagine how crowd it could be at night, especially during festivals such as Halloween, Christmas and New Year Eve.There is always something going on in Lan Kwai Fong. People from different parts of the world will jostle and celebrate together and it is absolutely worth visiting if you want to experience western life and culture. You can easily find yourself absorbed into it for sure.

According to what we saw, heard and read in Lan Kwai Fong, English, German, French, Putonghua and Cantonese are quite common, but still, English is the most significant language for different nationalities to communicate given that Hong Kong is such a cosmopolitan city and English tends to be dominant in the world. Nevertheless, with the constant increase in numbers of tourists from Mainland China and Taiwan, it seems that Mandarin has started to play an essential role in Lan Kwai Fong. It is possible that Mandarin may replace English to become the communication medium that most people would use there. In addition, it can be predicted that the district will have more bars and restaurants to satisfy the rising number of tourists and locals in the near future. Hopefully, this kind of problem can be solved so that Lan kwai Fong can still remain its reputation and symbol as the most famous attraction to tourists for night-life in Asian.

Bibiliography

Burgess S(2004). CANADIAN CLUB. Maclean's,117(13),38-2 .Retrieved October 28, 2008, from Academic Research Library database.

Landry R, and Bourhis R(1997). Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study. Journal of Language and Social Psychology,16(1), 23-27.Retrieved October 30, 2008, from Academic Research Library database.

Sham Shui Po 1

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:46:37 CST

Hong Kong Langscape: Shum Shui Po Hi5 question: What is your native language?

We have interviewed different people.

The first one is Don, his native language is Afghan.
The second one is Didier, his native language is French.
The third one is Nelson, his native language is English.
The fourth one are Kisubi Mohamed Muwadha and Kyeswa Charlesthe, their native language is Ugandish.
The last one is a very cute child , her native language is Putonghua.

Sham Shui Po Reference

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:46:08 CST

Reference

Websites reference:

Hong Kong Tourism Board http://www.discoverhongkong.com/eng/shop/where/sh_wher_kowl2.jhtml

Book reference:

- S.P.Kwan, “Pick N’ Mix Travel”, 2005
- Beth Reiber, “Fromer’s Hong Kong”, Hoboken, N.J:Wiley, 2005
- L.Richardson, “Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use Customer-focused Dialogue to Close Sales”, McGraw-Hill Professional, 1997
- Melvin L. DeFleur, Margaret H. DeFleur, Patricia Kearney& Timothy Plax, “Fundamentals of Human Communication”, McGraw Hill, 2004

Sham Shui Po Conclusion

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:45:27 CST

Conclusion
No matter is Apliu Street, Golden Computer Arcade or Golden Computer Centre shows a unique langscape which is very attractive. Both audio and visual languages do show in a creative and remarkable way. What we can see there is warm, friendly and cordial. You may find that Sham Shui Po contains many Hong Kong language features, for instance, a price with a big cross and saying “please feel free to look around”. They really make you feel benevolent. However, there also are other features owned by itself at the same time. For example, speaking Cantonese with foreigners and chatting with customers like an old friend. It is sure that they will let you feel novel. All of them will impress you a lot. After our introduction of Sham Shui Po, do you want to go there for a look? Then, what are you waiting for? Just let go!!

Hi 5

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:44:52 CST

Hi 5 Question: How do you communicate with
different kinds of people in Sham Shui Po?

1. A salesman in Apliu street
( Male, about 50, Chinese) Answer: I can use Cantonese because the majority of consumers is Hong Kong people. It is no problem for me to communicate with them as Cantonese is my mother tongue. Not only Cantonese, Hakka and Fukien are used to greet with my neighbors. However, there are still visitors from foreign countries. My English is bad and just can speak simple English, for example “Hello!”, “Welcome!”. To avoid communication obstacle, I usually write the price on each good. They can know how much they are without asking me. Sometimes, I need to use body language to assist with me.

2. A visitor
( Female, about 40, Australian) Answer: Being a foreigner, I find that communicate with non-English speakers is very challenging for me, especially when I am shopping in Apliu street. Most people in there are unable to understand English so I have to use body language to communicate with them. When I walk along Apliu street, I always notice some promoters are doing demonstration outside the shop, but they all speak in Cantonese, I feel confused with what they are presenting about.

3. A student
( Male, about 20, Chinese) Answer: As I am a Chinese, I use Cantonese to communicate with most people in Sham Shui Po. Meanwhile, I can speak English and have some knowledge about Japanese so I am willing to offer help when I see visitors come across communication problem.

4. A student
( Female, about 18, Chinese) Answer: Cantonese is the most common language for me to communicate with the people I meet in Sham Shui Po. To enhance my English standard, I always talk with westerners and help the hawkers to do the translation.

5. A salesman in Golden Computer Centre ( Male, about 25, Chinese) Answer: If I notice that westerners are interested in the products, I am confident to step forward and use English to introduce the latest products to them. Though my English may not be fluent enough, I believe that they can still get the information. On the other hand, for the locals, I use another way to communicate with them. In order to attract people to walk in the shop and ask for the price, I usually use crosses (e.g.$2XXX) or just cross out the original price to show the value of products. It is a unique communication method in Sham Shui Po.

Tapescripts of Interviews

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:43:37 CST

Tapescripts of Interviews
How come Sham Shui Po seems like a family?
After reading the follwoing scripts, you will know the answers.

V for Veryhea, I for Interviewee

1. Interview of a hawker

V: Excuse me, how can I call you?
I: You can call me Mr. Chau.
V: Why do you choose Sham Shui Po to run a business? What are the uniqueness of Sham Shui Po?
I: Actually, I live in Sham Shui Po and I am the salesman of this stall.
V: I see. Is it profitable to run a business in Sham Shui Po?
I: er……It is not really good.
V: Not really good. Has the sales figures been increased in recent years? Or, was the situation better in the past?
I: It is better now.
V: What is the reason for it?
I: There were fewer stalls in Sham Shui Po. However, the number of stalls and the variety of products has been increased.
V: What kind of products have been added?
I: Such as torches and earphones. They were not sold in the past.
V: Since you have been living in Sham Shui Po for a long time, can you tell me what is your first impression of it
I: Frankly, I cannot tell what is my impression but the most important thing in my mind is my career.
V: I got your point.
I: I work to earn more money in order to bring up my children.
V: As Sham Shui Po is an old district, do you think there is full of a sense of friendliness?
I: There has been much more friendliness than before.

2. Interview of a visitor

V: Would you mind telling us the reason for you coming to Sham Shui Po?
I: Oh, we come to Sham Shui Po to buy beads and equipments to make jewellery. It’s a lot cheaper than other shops in Hong Kong.
V: So… is that attractive for you?
I: Ahh.. I like to go Sham Shui Po as it's really different to Hong Kong Island. Sham Shui Po is one of the poorest areas in Hong Kong. Umm…. It does not focus on the attractions; maybe we should go to like eating. It’s a foreign exchange. And because we are from Australia, where the cultural is different, we enjoy it.
V: What other things can you buy here？
I: We can buy fabrics, accessories to make clothes, beads, jewellery, and all the equipments, buy jam, many things, okay? It’s lot of fun.

3.Interview of an electronic enthusiast

V: Hello, how can we call you?
I: Mr. Cheung.
V: Mr. Cheung, are you living in here?
I: No, I am not living in here.
V: Apart from old, what is your first impression towards Sham Shui Po?
I: Things about AV.
V: How do you feel about Sham Shui Po?
I: Old….rather grass-root….we think we are used to….think most places with long history in Hong Kong (he means the elderly) will live in Sham Shui Po. Young couples like me will not live in this district.
V: Thank you for your cooperation.

4.Interview of a firm owner

I: I am the owner of this shoes firm, which is called Hung Hei Shoes Firm.It is being reconstructed now.It has been here for around 80 years.No one lives here.
V: Will it be dismantled?
I: It depends. The firm will be sold soon.
V: It will be sold?
I: Yes.
V: Is it the landmark of Sham Shui Po?
I: Not really. But, most of the buildings in Sham Shui Po are like this.
V: Is it the oldest building in Sham Shui Po?
I: Yes, I am sure. We didn't sell it even though the buyer gave us an offer of 25 millions.

Languages Heard in Sham Shui Po

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:43:00 CST

Languages Heard in Sham Shui Po
In Apliu Street . . . . . .

It is no exaggeration to say all kind of products can be found in Apliu Street. Many electronic enthusiasts are attracted to Apliu Street by its reputation of sufficient provision and cheapness. The stores, which are located in the middle of the street, usually sell second-hand products. These stores are as silent as the grave, and the store owners' voice is gruff as if an old man was muttering with himself. By hearing their voice, it is difficult to understand what they are talking about clearly because most of them cannot speak Cantonese fluently. Instead, they speak with Chinese dialects, which cannot be understood by youngsters especially. Many consumers and tourists tend to buy the products, but they have difficulties in communicating with the hawkers. Luckily, some people are willing to translate to them by using simple English or body languages.

Languages Seen in Sham Shui Po

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:42:20 CST

Languages Seen in Sham Shui Po In Apliu Street . . . . . .

Let's go to the Apliu Street right now !

About Sham Shui Po

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:41:25 CST

About Sham Shui Po

Sham Shui Po is located in Kowloon West. The origin of its name is about a pier with deep water, but it is just used to describe the previous landscape. As our city keeps developing in the past few decades, Sham Shui Po is no longer a pier but a place mixed with both residential and commercial land uses. It is an area where urban decay is serious, and the government has been concerned about the problem and has decided to carry out urban renewal project in recent years. Therefore, Sham Shui Po is definitely a place that shows the changing culture of Hong Kong, of course including the part of language culture that exists in this district.

Whenever we heard of the term Sham Shui Po, the very first things we may associate it with must be Golden Computer Center and Apliu Street. This is a man’s street indeed. (S.P.Kwan, “Pick N’ Mix Travel”, 2005) Besides the locals there, visitors to Sham Shui Po mainly go for buying computer related products in Golden Computer Center and electric appliances in Apliu Street. Since the localization practiced there, products sold there are usually cheaper than the same product being sold in other districts in Hong Kong. That’s why people would like to visit Sham Shui Po to buy inferior commodities.

Sham Shui Po 2

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:40:52 CST

Hong Kong Langscape
Different forms of languages are being used to communicate every day. When we heard of the word “language”, it is not unusual for us to link it with words. Actually, languages can simply be divided into two parts: visual and audio. Visual means languages that we can see and audio means what we can hear. Hong Kong, a tiny but multi-culture city, can easily found different languages being used in different places.

Hong Kong Langscape is a project in exploring why and how Hong Kong people in particular districts present their own languages in a unique way. And this time, Sham Shui Po is chosen as our study target.

The study of Sham Shui Po can nearly give you the whole picture of Hong Kong’s Langscape. People there do speak in different languages, like mandarin, Putonghua, English and so on. This feature is totally fit Hong Kong’s international image. People talk in fast speed, like pressed the “Fast Forward” button. It keeps all characters in Hong Kong with adding new features. They chat with people in a rather rude way but without any foul language. They are used to use exaggerated things and ways to capture your attention, like using “big words”, posters and microphones. When you become a bit familiar with their languages used, you will probably feel they are really friendly and treat you as a FAMILY. Therefore, their languages are totally not coarse but cordial !

What is more, using languages to communicate is inevitable when pricing and bargaining. How do the shop owners use languages in selling products? What skills do people use in order to lower the price? What did we hear and see in our field trip? The answers of the above questions are going to be unveiled =)

See It for Yourself

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:39:52 CST

See It for Yourself

Happy Valley Racecourse 360º

The bustling Happy Valley Racecourse during the Oktoberfest. A DJ is playing Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" to the crowd. Don't you just want to dance to the music?

The Race from Above

A complete race viewing from above. We stood there on the 7th floor and enjoy the quietness away from the cheering and booing crowd below.

The Winners!

There we were right next to the track when the winning horses and riders soared in front of us to receive congratulations from race-goers. It was pretty amazing to see the horses this close and listen to the ground rumble when they passed us!

Happy Valley

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:39:14 CST

Hong Kong Langscape - Happy Valley Racecourse

*Remember to hold your cursor over the pictures to view the captions!

A Brief Introduction

You have to pay ten dollars to enter, but it is worth it. The Happy Valley Racecourse is a place that stands out from other places in Hong Kong. It is not because of its unique architecture or breath-taking views, but rather the difference you feel once you stroll into the area. It is like a foreign ground being moved in to Hong Kong and you do not easily realize that you are in some part on Hong Kong Island.
The origin of the name “Happy Valley” itself is already a lost tale that few talk about nowadays. It is perhaps a let-down to know that the name has nothing to do with horse racing in the racecourse – now a major landmark of the district – but instead a Christian cemetery set up by the British in the 1840s, unlike the Chinese name “Pau Ma Dei” which means the “horse racing place”.

Expecting to see gamblers rudely shouting for the horses and riders and most probably with foul languages involved, it is a surprise to see quite a difference to our expectations. For one thing, foreigners, either tourists or Hong Kong residents, took up a significant proportion of the visitors in the racecourse. For another, they never quite seem to be “agitated” except when the horses were approaching the finish line in the races. When the audience shouted, it was usually the number of the horses they put bets on. Foreigners, as compared to locals, regard the venue as one of their social gathering grounds. Men and women wearing casual outfits were easily seen gathered around a high table and drinking buckets of beer.

Wandering in the Racecourse

Just as we got off the tram, almost the whole population on the street seemed to be flowing to the entrance of the racecourse. Looking over the heads, you could tell there were visitors of varied nationalities. Once you entered the course, you can quickly notice that most of the placards are written in both Chinese and English. This is probably that the Jockey Club has made the languages official ones.

Outdoor area...

If you visit the racecourse in October, you can even see a stronger mixture of cultures as Oktoberfest, the beer festival is being held. Stalls of different beer companies such as Erdinger, Lowenbrau and Stella Artois are surrounded by people of various skin colours: Filipino, European, Indian or Chinese. Some of them chatted with each other even though they didn’t know their companions. No one would object that English is the most powerful language in the existing world for people with different mother tongues to communicate. Seeing them chatting in English would make you think that the world is truly a global village. During the beer festival, the beer-drinking competition is naturally the highlight. The stalls are packed with people, either drinking as fast as they can or cheering for the contestants despite the fact that they did not speak the same language. The record keepers’ names were written on a board, some in Chinese, the foreign ones in English and some in local transliterations.

Indoor area…
The majority of the habitués rush into the indoor betting station once they arrive at the racecourse. The number of signs that lead you the way is generally satisfying. They are also bilingual – in Chinese and English. Some signs are even written in simplified Chinese to provide more friendly directions for Mainlanders. As the betting stations are indoor and rather populated with a large number of gamblers, some may not stand the commotion and lack of space. Monitors showing the results of each race for gamblers indoor display mainly Chinese but some English terms as well. Not into the betting habit, we are unable to comprehend betting short terms shown on the monitors like “pla”, “tce” and “qin odds”. The gamblers, however, are apparently very familiar with the terms.

At upper levels…
The Happy Valley racecourse has a main building of 7 levels, allowing racegoers to dine in the restaurants, watch the races from different angles and sit high above to enjoy the spectacular views. It would be a pity if you do not go high in the stands because it gets more and more tranquil as you go upwards. Glancing around from above, it is a joy to be able to escape the uproar just beside the track and on the ground level. Language use at upper levels is less varied since most of the people there are locals. However, some of them would unconsciously talk in Chinglish, just like people in any other parts of the racecourse. Some of the locals come here not only to watch the races, but they also discuss other things such as business and the stock market. We happened to overheard two men saying “the market is quite ‘down’ lately” with the phrase “down” in English and the rest of the sentence in Cantonese.

Listening to the Racecourse

In the Happy Valley Racecourse, it is certainly fair to say that sounds speak louder than visuals. Even if you cannot see, you would have no difficulty being immersed in the racing atmosphere.

The commentaries…
For one thing, commentaries in the racecourse almost tell you all you need to know about the goings-on of the races. From the start when horses and riders rush out of the fences and try to break out from the crowd of horses, to the finish line where every horse and man dive forwards with all their might, commentators act as narrators for those who can and cannot see. Not a single moment in the race is missed by their eyes which they convert to lines that control the whole rhythm of the race, as well as racegoers’ emotions. For locals, there will be no difficulty in recognizing the voice of the commentators that grew up with us in radio braodcasts. Although commentaries are made only in Cantonese, you can easily feel the tension among the crowd and how half the people, even complete novices, hold their breath when the commentators give the audience news on the latest ranks of the horses. A lot of racing terms are used, for example: “quinella” (a reverse forecast) and “six up!” (picking a winner in six races). If you happened not to be a gambler, it probably would not make much sense. The commentators may not just tell the numbers or the names of the horses. Sometimes they may talk about the colours of the horses, how their previous performance is, and the rider’s names. Horse racing commentators are like housing estate agents who give tips to gamblers. They are tipping their favourite horses to gamblers. However, their tips are not always accurate. Yet, no gamblers would complain about them. When we hear commentators saying ‘number 1 is leading and only 100 hundred ft is left’, both the audience and the commentators are filled with excitement. A race in the racecourse without commentary is just unimaginable.

Official announcements…
Official announcements in the racecourse are not surprisingly made in Cantonese and English. Sometimes when several riders have crossed the line very close to each other in a race, they may request for a review of the results. The Jockey Club officials will then broadcast the announcement of the request and results of the review. As the track is pre-recorded, the broadcast is generally of good quality and in well-spoken Cantonese and English.

The racegoers…
“Three and four! THREE AND FOUR!” would be a demonstration of what racegoers, mostly those who have placed bets, cheer about when the horses close the finish line. As you may have guessed, Cantonese and English, the local tongues, are not the only languages spoken in the racecourse. You can easily hear people speaking Mandarin, some other European languages, Tagalog and perhaps Urdu, the national language of Pakistan. Unable to comprehend languages other than the few you know, it is an interesting experience to hear the crowd cheer for the same thing using a variety of languages. While the races enter their highest points, the crowd around you would automatically provide you with a mixture of sound effects: some shouting out numbers, some yelling the names of the horses, some possibly swearing as the results are unlikely to win them any money, while quiet racegoers wait in silence with a series of “oohs” and “aahs”. Without surprise, occasional use of foul language is also observed. This special effect would last for minutes after a race is over.

In case you wonder what people do between races which could be fifteen minutes or so, apart from grabbing a newspaper to decide which horses to place bets on in the coming races, what most do is to talk. As we observed, the subjects of discussion among locals are usually related to the races. We have seen couples watching the races together, fathers going with their sons and groups of folks in their 50s or 60s, while the older racegoers tend to speak more loudly. Westerners, on the other hand, are less likely to limit their topics to the races. Casually holding a cup of beer or a hamburger in their hand, they usually stand around a bar table close to the track and have everyday conversations. Some ladies may dress up for the venue while most wear T-shirts and jeans. To them, the racecourse might as well be a social gathering ground at weekends in addition to the place where thrilling races can be seen. As usual, a great range of languages can be heard around the area where racegoers sit or stand, forming the unique multi-lingual atmosphere in Happy Valley Racecourse.

The Oktoberfest…
Having visited the Happy Valley Racecourse in October, you will find the place even more livened up than in the rest of the year as Oktoberfest, the beer festival held in October, means having a DJ playing music that make you want to dance and some games you can join for fun. We have made a short video recording the bustling place during the festival. Please go to “See It for Yourself” in our site to experience the excitement. Being a professional DJ in this multi-lingual environment, the DJ in Oktoberfest speaks bilingually – in Cantonese and English. With Hong Kong being a city of China, you may expect local pop songs or maybe Mandarin songs to be played, but that is not the case. Having to entertain both locals and foreigners, the DJ’s choices are limited to internationally-known songs, whether purely English or not. We happened to recognise the song “Livin’ la Vida Loca” by Ricky Martin which is sang mostly in English but with the Spanish phrase “livin’ la vida loca” (meaning “living the crazy life”) incorporated into the chorus (as two of our group members are currently learning Spanish). So, if you really pay attention, you will notice far more languages than just English and Cantonese. These choices of songs mean whether you understand English or not, you can still have fun and enjoy yourself.

The games in Oktoberfest no doubt include a beer-drinking competition in which racegoers compete to drink a bucket of beer as fast as they can. Their names and records are then written down on a board so that the winner will be awarded a price at the end of the day. It is quite impressive to see that the competitors, mainly men, are of all different nationalities. We are proud to see Chinese names up on the board as well as foreign ones which their origins are hard to tell. While challengers are being timed, passers-by cheered for them even though they do not know each other. Some locals cheered in Cantonese while foreigners used the international language – English. Standing among the small crowd of people shouting “Faster!” or “You can do it!”, it simply does not matter where you come from or whether you know what others are shouting or not. It is just fun to be part of the crowd. So if you have missed the festival in Happy Valley Racecourse, remember to go there next year and experience the sensation.

Language Use of Different Purposes

Apart from commentators, announcers, DJs, racegoers and in written signs and terms, there is also other language use in the racecourse. The beer girls who work at booths selling beer are also multi-language speakers. Not only are they beautifully dressed, having to deal perhaps with more foreigners than locals, their language abilities are in fact quite demanding. Same goes for staff who coordinate the games, officers at the gift shop, as well as counter staff who take bets from racegoers. The most challenging thing to work in the racecourse is perhaps the different languages staff have to speak – most probably English, Cantonese and Mandarin – and the fact that visitors from all over the world speak a language with their particular accent, thus making it more difficult to communicate.

Conclusion: Langscape in Happy Valley Racecourse

Not only is the Happy Valley Racecourse a geographical and architectural landmark in Hong Kong, the unique multi-lingual environment is also what makes the place stand out from others. When you think of places in Hong Kong where language use is different from most others, you may go for Tsim Sha Tsui, Mongkok, Central or Lan Kwai Fong, but this first-ever excursion of ours into the Happy Valley Racecourse tells us that the racecourse is also on the list.

The racecourse is designed to operate with people of different nationalities. We have seen great effort made by the Jockey Club to make the place user-friendly for all visitors, providing both English and Chinese directions and official announcements. Although some reflected that the directions in English are insufficient, most are satisfied and not bothered by the difference in language use than in other parts of the city. The most intriguing phenomenon we observed is perhaps the small communities formed by foreigners who most probably live here in, to them, a foreign land. They sort of regard the racecourse as a place where they can go back to their way of life, even for a few hours, watching the races and gathering to drink beer without people staring at them. Despite the fact that Hong Kong is an international metropolitan and people are quite used to bilingualism, it may be a comfort to find an area in Hong Kong where English-speakers take a more significant composition.

As locals, we believe that locals like ourselves are able to be immersed in the environment more than anyone else as they can enjoy the adrenaline-raising commentaries and the racegoers’ intense cheers for riders and horses. If you do not oppose to being in a rather smoky and bustling environment for the afternoon, the Happy Valley Racecourse would indeed be an ideal place for your pastime.

The Interviews

Question 1: How do you feel in this environment using multiple languages?
Question 2: Which three adjectives would you use to describe the racecourse?


Shanghaineses, tourists, friends We’re fine with that. Hot, far away, attractive and fun.	Hi-5	Australian, tourist Cool, people speak English all the time. Huge, organized and easily-accessible.

Americans, tourists, couples Interesting but annoying. Couldn’t find the way. The security guards don’t understand English. There should be more English signs. Great atmosphere, noisy and exciting.	Pakistanis, locals (speak fluent Cantonese) It’s okay. It doesn’t bother us.	Hongkonger, local It doesn’t matter. Bustling.

More. . .

Remember to go to "See It for Yourself" to watch the videos we made in the racecourse and see the racecourse yourself!

Bibliography

Lamont, T., 2008. Observer Sport Monthly: play: Happy Valley racecourse, Hong Kong: The Annotated Arena: Wednesday night race, 23 April 2008, in The Observer, p. 72.

Wan, C., 2007, May 9. Where To Live: Happy Valley, in South China Morning Post, p. 8.

William, B., 2008, May 19. Happy Valley cemetery yields lost secrets – and name’s origin, in South China Morning Post, p. 1.

Tsim Sha Tsui 3

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:38:18 CST

Hong Kong Langscape – Language Exploration in Tsim Sha Tsui

Introduction

Tsim Sha Tsui, where a mixture of famous tourist zone and commercial area can be found, definitely performs like a magnet attracting people from different countries, races and classes to go there for shopping, sightseeing and working. Different languages are expected to be heard. This place, therefore, instantly came up in our minds when we were asked to choose a district for the Langscape project. Being the language explorers, we truly believe that Tsim Sha Tsui is a desirable place where a unique way of language use can be demonstrated for us.
Let’s start our language exploration in Tsim Sha Tsui!

Strolling into Tsim Sha Tsui

Seeing Tsim Sha Tsui…

People! Almost every street in Tsim Sha Tsui, we saw not only locals, but also foreigners who might be tourists, immigrants or domestic workers. It might seem easy that we could identify who were the locals and who were not, yet it was not true. On the day we visited Tsim Sha Tsui, we mistook two Singaporean visitors for Hongkongers until they came to us for direction and told us that it was the first day of their trip in Hong Kong. This embarrassing incident taught us a lesson that one's nationality or identity could not solely depend on his or her appearance or we might have wrong perception and bias in this way. At the same time, there were quite a number of people in sari or turban. They, we guessed, might come from different cultural background and keep their social identity by dressing and behaving differently according to their own culture.

Posters and Signboards! Walking along the streets in Tsim Sha Tsui, we saw a lot of posters, signboards and billboards. This honestly did not surprise us because they all could be commonly seen in Hong Kong, and all the Hongkongers were familiar about that. What made we amazed was that those posters and signboards were constructed and displayed in so many different languages and in such a creative way that were far from our imagination!

We might not hear people speak in Korean or German in Tsim Sha Tsui. But definitely we saw the Korean and German posters or signboards along the streets, though we did not understand any words. Apart from these, signboards containing simplified Chinese could also be seen everywhere in Tsim Sha Tsui. The usage of various kinds of languages in posters or signboards really drew our attention. Even more interesting, there were lots of Japanese restaurants in Tsim Sha Tsui. In order to stand out among the competitors, they all used special presentation method in their signboards. For example, there was a signboard which contained not only Japanese words, but also the image of a SUMO PLAYER. The words together with the image made the signboard appeared in a heavy Japanese style.

Signs! There were also some interesting signs which locals normally could not understand or recognize. For instance, there was a sign showing the direction of an Irish restaurant. Instead of explaining by words, this sign used several drawings to point out the direction. It was simple but understandable and interesting, wasn’t it? Moreover, there was actually a green s ign which we could find in lots of restaurant billboards and leaflets. We all were curious about it and just wondered what it represented. We, finally, found that it was an Arabic term which referred to the food that was permissible according to Islamic law.

One more thing we found special in Tsim Sha Tsui was that there were many signs constructed in bilingual or even trilingual. It could be easily observed that traditional Chinese, English and Japanese were the three common languages seen in the signs, even in the posters and billboards.

Hearing Tsim Sha Tsui…

"Noisy" might mostly be the adjective that many people used to describe Tsim Sha Tsui, indeed it was, with so many people always crowded in the street. But the noise we heard in Tsim Sha Tsui was slightly different from that we heard in any of the markets. In Tsim Sha Tsui, we heard different languages in the noise. While Cantonese of course was the language we heard people spoke the most, Putonghua, English, Tagalog and Hindi were the other foreign languages that could also be heard during our journey.

Reading Tsim Sha Tsui…

Reading Tsim Sha Tsui was fun since there were different types of visual materials which grasped our attention. Like in many other places, the book stores in Tsim Sha Tsui also sold both Chinese and English books and magazines, but what made Tsim Sha Tsui special was that books and magazines in Hindi were sold there as well. We were really surprised to find so many reading materials in foreign languages sold in Hong Kong! In addition, we could easily find that there were shops selling souvenirs to tourists, especially the ORIENTIAL-themed T-shirts which contained the image of a dragon or Chinese words.

Targeting a building in Tsim Sha Tsui…

After strolling on the streets once in Tsim Sha Tsui, hardly could we deny that Tsim Sha Tsui was truly a multinational place as well as a multi-language region.

However, those observations could hardly satisfy our acquisitiveness. Being the curious language explorers, we were of great interest to further investigate the multi-language use in Tsim Sha Tsui. Undoubtedly, Chungking Mansions was the best place to go as there were over 120 different nationalities passing through its entrance in a single year.

Adventure in Chungking Mansions

Curious and excited but scared…

Chungking Mansions which featured a labyrinth of low-budget guesthouses, curry restaurants, African bistros, sari stores, and foreign exchange offices, was our target. There were many rumors about the Mansions and one of the stories we had heard was about a young lady found disappeared after entering the Mansions. Thanked to these stories, we did not consider Chungking Mansions as just a normal mixed commercial and residential building as it did. Instead, we four subconsciously placed Chungking Mansions as a dangerous area in our minds that stepping in the Mansions meant walking into the monsters' caves. Although we were full of courage to have an adventure in there, we still felt frightened and lost especially when we became a minority group surrounded by a large pool of unfamiliar faces and situated in a strange place we had never been to.

What we saw…

When we first stepped in Chungking Mansions, we saw a lot of people with unfamiliar faces. Some were people with black skin colour standing in front of the shops, some were foreign tourists carrying with their luggage and some were like maids gathering in front of the exchange shops. However, there was just a lack of familiar faces, the locals.

Like any other places in Tsim Sha Tsui, there were also many posters and signs in Chungking Mansions. The difference between them, however, was the languages used. The main languages seen in the Mansions were English and Hindi, we inferred according to its shape, instead of Chinese. Besides, we found that the languages were always presented plainly in alphabets or words without the supplement of pictures. At that moment, we just wondered if people did not know both English and Hindi, how they could survive in the Mansions!

Impressively, we remembered seeing a VCD and DVD shop with an eye-catching setting. The front of the shop was filled with a half-hundred of discs. The designs of disc covers looked a bit familiar to us; however, the characters and movie contents were mysterious. We were far from intelligent to distinguish even a single Hindi word. In addition, there were different kinds of traditional Indian food or snacks sold in the building. Some name tags were put next to the food in order to show the details. They however were all in Hindi and thus we could not recognize any food and did not have a try to taste them.

What we heard…

We saw different races of people; different languages were heard therefore. English and Hindi, of course, were the principal languages heard in Chungking Mansions. Other than these, we heard Tagalog, Thai and some languages that we could not recognize and they might be Urdu or Tamil. Even more interesting, we heard a little bit Cantonese that was spoken by an Indian phone card salesperson. Although we did not have much conversation with him, we still found interesting in hearing some people with different cultural background from us speak in Cantonese.

What’s more, we heard some music outside a store in Chungking Mansions. Though we could not exactly tell which place the music came from, the melody of the music was traditional and strong enough to present a feeling of mysteriousness and vigor of a specific culture. In this way, we could find that languages not only appeared in prints, but could also express in non-visual mode which was able to deliver the same message. For example, we do not need anyone to tell us that Spanish are full of passion as we can experience it through their music and lyrics.

Besides, we also heard some noises from the TV or radio inside some shops. Once again, without much proficiency in different kinds of languages, we could only recognize it as an Indian-like sound. Surrounded by various kinds of languages but not much Cantonese, we could not refrain from asking ourselves, were we still in Hong Kong?

Relationship between language and emotion…

After the exploration in Chungking Mansions, we found how silly we had been before. There was not any monster living in the building. Why didn't we dare to visit the Mansions? This reminded us a case study of “Language Shock”. Through the experience of Chinese students in London, Marr (2005) discovered that people always had a wrong perception towards a place if they lacked sociolinguistic awareness. They would be surprised or disappointed if they discovered the reality. We thought that this case could be applied to our adventure in Chungking Mansions. Due to a lack of sociological sense, we wrongly perceived the Chungking Mansions as a dangerous place and believed that people living there would not be the "good" person. However, this was not true! We might feel lost in the Mansions as we were situated in an unfamiliar place, the “Indian world”. But we definitely should not feel threatened by this building and its residents!

It would be a better way to truly understand a place through experiencing but not just sticking to our own perception. Therefore, we conducted a face to face interview with various kinds of people in order to know more about the language use in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Interviewing in Tsim Sha Tsui

Trying to explore more language use in Tsim Sha Tsui, we had some short interviews with the passers-by.

Wanted to know…

As Tsim Sha Tsui was a district where gathered a large number of immigrants from different countries, we were curious about whether the immigrants would learn Cantonese in order to adapt the environment in Hong Kong or be affected to use Cantonese for communication purposes. Here were the two questions set for the interview:

1) What languages can you speak?
2) What language do you speak most often?

Results of the interview…

Interviewee A (GROUP 1)
Sunita Rai (woman in the left)
Nationality: Indian

Q1: Hindi, Nepalese, English
Q2: Nepalese
(Immigrant, has come to HK for 5 years)

Interviewee B (GROUP 5)
Samuel Ng (man in the left)
Nationality: Singaporean

Q1: English, Putonghua, Japanese, Italian, Malaysian
Q2: English
(Tourist, staying in HK for 4 days)

Interviewee C & D (GROUP 3)
Gean (left) and Mercy (right)
Nationality: Philippine

Q1: BOTH: English, Tagalog, a little bit Cantonese

Gean: Ilonga, Mercy: Kapampangan
Q2: BOTH: Tagalog

(Foreign domestic helpers, have come to HK for 4.5 years and 8 years respectively)

Interviewee E (GROUP 4)
Bryan
Nationality: Chinese

Q1: Cantonese, English, Putonghua
Q2: Cantonese and English
(Local)

Interviewee F (GROUP 5)
Elizabeth
Nationality: American

Q1: English
Q2: English
(Tourist, staying in HK for 3 days)

Findings of the interview…

Before carrying out the interviews, we actually expected the immigrants and those who stayed in Hong Kong for years could speak in Cantonese or at least some. It was because we thought that learning Cantonese was a good way to adapt the living environment in Hong Kong and the immigrants might need to use Cantonese for communication purpose. Phinney et al (2006) also believed that “Learning the language of the country of settlement, or national language, is one of the major tasks of immigrants.” However, it was not the case in our interview. Our interviewees (Sunita Rai and her family, Gean and Mercy) most often speak in their own language instead of Cantonese. And we could not find any immigrants from other countries could speak in Cantonese! The result really surprised us! This might because the immigrants neither had a great need nor a high motivation to learn Cantonese, we guessed.

Meanwhile, among the interviewees, we found one thing in common. All of them were able to speak in English, no matter what their mother tongues were or what their nationalities were. English let us communicate with each other successfully and effectively. This showed that English seemed to be an important language for communication between people from different countries and different cultures in Tsim Sha Tsui.

In all, we found that it might not be necessary for immigrants or tourists to learn or use Cantonese in order to survive in Hong Kong, but English appeared to be a more essential one.

Conclusion

Comparing with New York or London, Hong Kong is not a very big city, but still, people from different cultural background can be found. Tsim Sha Tsui is just one small region in this small city; nevertheless, various kinds of languages can be heard and seen. After the visit to Tsim Sha Tsui, we found that it indeed was a multinational district and free to accept different kinds of culture. It was believed that people could know a place well by experiencing its surrounding environment and communicating with locals. Although we may have been living in Hong Kong for twenty years, we actually do not know the city very well. Visiting Tsim Sha Tsui provided us with a first step to have a deep look to Hong Kong. We actually started to observe the people and physical environment around us. What languages do the locals and tourists speak? How are the languages presented on the streets? The findings sometimes may surprise us. Who knows?

Reference

Marr, T. (2005). Language and the capital: A case study of 'language shock' among Chinese students in London. Language Awareness, 14 (4), 239-253.
Phinney, J. S., Berry, J. W., Vedder, P., & Liebkind, K. (2006). The acculturation experience: Attitudes, identities, and behaviors of immigrant youth. In J. W. Berry, J. S. Phinney, D. L. Sam, & P. Vedder (Eds.), Immigrant youth in cultural transition : Acculturation, identity, and adaptation across national contexts (pp. 78-79). Mahwah, NJ, USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Incorporated

Don't forget to check out our recordings in Tsim Sha Tsui
from the ATTACHMENT part underneath!!!!

Kowloon Bay

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:35:23 CST

Hong Kong Langscape

An interesting place to explore…

Telford Plaza, a shopping mall which is famous for its enormous entertainment and commercial spots, is linked directly to the Kowloon Bay station along the Kwun Tong Line of the railway. Kowloon Bay, a place of the past and the present, is where the transformation of our city can still be traced and is bravely embracing the changes to come.

Located next to Ngau Tau Kok, one of the oldest districts in Hong Kong, Kowloon Bay is an interesting place that connects a large number of middle class people. On one hand, it still has a few of Chinese-style tenements and old teahouses which remain like the footprints in the land. On the other hand, it has a significant number of modern and high-rising buildings with trendy French windows. Kowloon Bay, to be precise, is surrounded by industrial, commercial and residential zones. The scene of foreigners dressed in business suits passing by a line of mobile hawkers is not rare. However, it is the region’s stage of transitioning, the high concentration of local residents and the diversity of visitors that caught our attention. Beyond all doubts, an place as interesting as this certainly has enough features to provoke us to take a closer look at it.

The most representative place in Kowloon Bay…
To make an investigation successful, we need to pick a place distinctive enough for its use of language. We have chosen the Telford Plaza as the main focus because it appears to have a multimodal culture for its long history and high pedestrian flow mainly due to the convenient connection to the Kowloon Bay MTR station. The maximum passenger flow there also enables us to study the use of language in this evolving district - Kowloon Bay.

The use of language and the words being used will strongly affect, either positively or negatively, visitors' impression. And the same applies to the scale of a shopping mall. To put our focus on the “langscape” of a place, we are inquisitive about how a Cantonese-dominant area, Kowloon Bay, might be affected by the influx of foreigners.

Our assumptions…

Hong Kong, as an international financial centre, is always being praised for its beautiful scenery and its multi-cultural environment. Although foreigners of different backgrounds are seen everywhere and the Government also uses a bilingual, or even trilingual approach to develop Hong Kong in order to create an international image, we wanted to verify the trueness of this title. To study the prevalence of languages other than Cantonese and to what extent they are being used in a micro environment are also our objectives.

Furthermore, as accessible as Telford Plaza is for both local residents living in nearby places and visitors, we logically assumed that the shoppers in Telford Plaza would include but not limited to: the White Collars working in nearby commercial zone, residents whom are living in Kowloon Bay, visitors from other districts in Hong Kong, and visitors from other countries.

Moreover, Americanization (according to the Wikipedia, is the term used for the influence the United States of America has on the culture of other countries, resulting in such phenomena as the substitution of a given culture with American culture) has more observable then ever before in the past few decades and we actually can find a number of U.S. shopes in Telford Plaza. Therefore, we were also interested to find out how the influx of American culture would have an impact on Hong Kongers in terms of their lanugage use.

To assess the verity of our predictions, we spared an afternoon to visit our targeted mall for the real suituation. We were all thrilled to see if Telford Plaza was as tourist-friendly as we had assumed.

Ready? GO!

Arrived in Kowloon Bay, finding Telford Plaza was easy thanks to the bilingual signs in the MTR station. Happiness came with shopping. Shops came closer and closer and we felt like - finally, home!

Like most shopping malls in Hong Kong, Telford Plaza is huge and clean. It was not too crowded then because it was a Monday afternoon. To our surprise, we didn't hear any music in the shopping mall. We walked around and what we heard was nothing but the voices of people and the sound of steps. Music encourages shopping, just as what J.Duncan Herrington and Louis M. Capella have suggested. Music greatly influences the shopping atmosphere as well as shoppers' mood [p.52] and we were disappointed to find that it was absent in Telford Plaza.

Wandering around, no foreigners came into our sight. In fact, many of the temporary advertisements were only written in Chinese. We searched their back but there were traces of English. To tourists it was no doubt a turn-down but, to the contrary, the big and catchy “Welcome” signs were everywhere. Isn’t it sarcastic for non-Chinese speakers?

Luckily, permanent signs like the directory were bilingual. But it was interesting that all boutiques named themselves in English, contrary to other shops such as restaturants and electronic shops.

[To know more via interviewing people...]

Considerations and plans…

After taking a relaxing walk in the mall, we decided to have some face-to-face encounters with the people there who are familiar with Telford Plaza which would greatly benefit our area of study.

Instead of taking random samples inside the mall, we aimed at the shop-keepers of different kinds of stores. The reasons were as follows: as what we have observed, much of the pesdestrain flow there simply treated the Plaza as a shortcut to their destinations to either the MTR, bus station or the building nearby. It is not, therefore, in accordance with our targets who are the shoppers of the mall. In order to avoid inaccuracy and over-generalisation, we chose to interview the shopper-keepers instead.

Moreover, shop-keepers and the salespeople are those who spend the most time in the mall. With their daily and regular obeservation, they have a fairy solid knowledge of the langscape in Telford Plaza and the answers provided would be more sensible and objective.

We have asked them two questions in the interview, 'How often do they use languages other than Cantonese to communicate with their customers?' and 'What are those languages?’. In fact, there are TWO major reasons behind the questions we formulated.

> Firstly, for the prolonged period of time they spend in the mall, they have the highest frequency of communicating with different kinds of people there, namely "Hong Kongers", "mainlanders" and "foreigners or visitors".

>>Secondly, their customers are exactly the visitors of the shopping mall rather than just passerbys. Therefore, to ask our targets these questions best enabled us to collect representable, fair, accurate and objective data. More importantly, with the filtering done by the source of our information, it has made our observation into the language use in Telford Plaza much easier.

The shops we went to were also chosen warily. Since we wanted information from various kinds of shops and customers, we planned to interview shops ranging from cafes, resturants, boutiques and electronics store.

What do we expect & WHY?

Being an international metropolis, it is expected that shops in a large and well-established shopping mall used languages other than Cantonese more frequently. As we can see, Telford Plaza a well-established large-scale shopping mall. We were impressed by the numerous international and local stores and we expect that the majority of visitors will be middle class people with relatively higher income and educational level.

Also, as we've mentioned before, Americanization is an observable trend worldwide and thus we expect more local people in Hong Kong, especially the middle to upper class people, will use English more in their daily life. Since the targeted customers of the international stores are mainly middle class people, we have a strong belief that many people will communicate with the staffs in these stores in English.

Lastly, a fact being mentioned for times - the Telford Plaza is connected to the Kowloon Bay MTR station and many bus stations can be found in the surrounding area, the accessibility of this place is extremely high. Although we visited there at noon, which supposed to be the lunch time, there was a crowd of people in the shopping mall. With such a high accessibility and attracting features as a large scale shopping mall with various kinds of stores, we therefore expect that other than local people, tourists from other countries will also pay a visit to this stunning mall and that the frequency of other languages being used will be reasonably high.

International & Non-International stores…

From our perspective, the target customers of international stores and non-international stores poles apart due to their selection of products and different range of market price. We therefore categorize the stores we are going to visit into two groups, namely international stores (having stores in two or more nations) and local store (having stores in China only).

We expect that customers of international stores are mostly local middle-class people with a relatively higher educational level and thus a higher probability to speak languages other than Cantonese. Say, English and Mandarin as two other common languages being used in Hong Kong. We expect interviewees from international stores will use other languages more often and ideally, we expect them to use other languages every day. Typify Starbucks as an example, it is not surprised to see foreigners and well-dressed office ladies and men sitting there, talking with friends relaxingly with a mug of latte. If you try to pay a little more attention, you may easily hear people using English in Starbucks! Therefore, we expect more foreigners will visit those international stores in the Telford Plaza and thus similarly, people working in those stores will have a high tendency to use other languages in every day conversation with their customers.

For local stores, the target customers will mainly be local people from different income and educational level. We predict most people visiting the local stores like the electronic stores will mainly use Cantonese when communicating with the staffs as local customers will obviously use a language which they are most familiar with when they have questions and want to get a clearer explanation from the staff in these stores. Moreover, many foreigners, like our group mate Marianne, simply would not dare to purchase products there since there were tourists cheated by dishonest shopkeepers and they found it hard to communicate with staffs in these stores that they might not get as much information as they want. According to Marianne, she prefers to buy electronic appliances before coming to Hong Kong so as to avoid this kind of problems. So, again, we expect that people working in local stores will have a lower tendency in using other languages.

The findings …

Originally we planned to interview a variety of shops so as to get a more objective date. Unluckily, some staffs from various shops turned down our request due to their company’s policy and thus we had to come up with another interview list with stores which allow us to carry on an interview. For quite a while, we underwent a hard time deciding which other shops to interview instead.

What is more?

Reality can sometimes be a disappointing fact. Out of our expectations, the actual results we obtained were so much different from what we expected at the first place. Everyone in our group was shocked to find out that 6 out of 7 interviewees speak languages other than Cantonese very rarely. They gave us a strong impression of localization in a way that local people dominated the whole shopping mall and most of them, if not every one of them, tend to use solely Cantonese (i.e. their mother tongue) all the time. Kowloon Bay may have been avoided by Amerization...

Ideally, we thought that more non-local and upper class people with higher tendency in using foreign languages will shop around in those international stores and they might feel like using a second language to communicate with our interviewees. However, the actual results that we obtained are as follow:

International Brands	Non-International Brands
5 stores – Rarely use other languages 1 store- Use other languages everyday	1 store – Rarely use other languages

Note: Interviewees are the staffs from different stores

As you may see, most staffs from different stores speak solely Cantonese for most of the time and they rarely use other languages to communicate with their customers. The actual was really a big shock and we were all curious to find out more about the causes which contribute to this trend. So, after the interview session, we walked around to take some photos and simply to observe the people in the mall. To our surprise, we found that almost all of them are local people and we just came across two foreigners in the mall in 3 hours.

Beyond all doubts, the proportion of visitors in Telford is markedly unevenly distributed. According to our observation and our interview results, local people make up at least 90% in total. Since Cantonese is the most common language in Hong Kong and we tend to communicate with one another by using our mother tongue most of the time, it is not surprising to see people talking in pure Cantonese. Therefore, with such a large population of local visitors, it seems more acceptable to the fact that most staffs from different stores just need to communicate with their customers in Cantonese but not other languages.

The only exception…

Out of the blue, one of the interviewees told us that he uses English and Mandarin to communicate with their customers E V E R Y D A Y. ‘There are some regular customers who are foreigners, of course. However, many local people love to make their order in English as well.’ said Joe, the supervisor of Starbucks.

For those who commonly visit Starbucks the English menu and the ‘Daily Special’ board are some noticeable features to be spotted. The staff in Starbucks also use English to communicate with each other. For example, when an order is made in Cantonese, the cashier will promptly translate the name of the drink into English for the barrister. For the high frequency of reading and hearing the English syllables in Starbucks makes customers feel like they are in a western coffee shop. The atmosphere in a place indeed affects people’s behaviours and reactions. Take Starbucks as a typical example of an English-speaking-provoked-place, we may come up with an idea that external factors do contribute to what languages a person use in a certain place and we are going to further investigate in this area in the following paragraphs.
Reading the mall…

As we walked around in the Telford Plaza after our interviews, we put more focus on reading the mall this time. We tried to observe its environment, including some Halloween decorations, welcoming wordings and posters. What is being pointed out here is that we did not only rely on the information we heard, we observed by our eyes, too. We attempted to take in all sources of information and combine them before making any judgments on the language pattern in the Telford Plaza.

The designers of the Telford Plaza have obviously thought about the possible visit of non-Hong-Kongers as we found bilingual directory and welcome signs everywhere. However, the current managers do not prepare a hospitable environment for them. As we have mentioned at the very beginning, temporary advertisement signs and other promotional posters of the mall are only written in Cantonese with no English translation.

Do they know they may be considered as discrimination?

Do they only target at local people?

Furthermore, the inside shops atmosphere is different because the marketing policy is peculiar to them. For example, some shops like Giordano display their advertisement posters in two languages. Cantonese non-speakers could be comfortable in this kind of outlets. So, a shopping mall and shops do not use a common marketing policy. These are examples of two electronics shops.
Bolton (2000) explains that ‘In the late colonial era, […] when a knowledge of English was spreading throughout the population at an unprecedented rate, official government language policy began to move in the other direction, towards the promotion of the Chinese language in a number of official domains" (p.270-271). This fresh upsurge could be a factor of Hong Kong using only Cantonese. So people were and are used to hear, to read and to speak Cantonese. They may not notice that because they are like a fish in water. Only when they leave this environment, they can realize that they speak Cantonese. This fish example is extremely linked to cultural differences. If we want to know who we are, where and how we live, we must stand back for a moment. On the other hand, we cannot know why temporary advertisement signs are not in English. This kind of discrimination seems to say “foreigners do not need Saturday Shopping Fever or playing to win gifts”. The environment is so discouraging for them. So, is Hong Kong an international city? Does Kowloon bay discriminate tourists? Or only the Telford Plaza? Do they want to keep their place away from foreigners?

Our suggestions…

After our visit in the Telford Plaza, we started to analyze all information and photos we have got and we came up with a few suggestions in which we think may feasibly promote the Telford Plaza as a more visitor-friendly place for both local and non-local people.

First, the mall may consider playing music in the mall as it helps to create a more favourable and comfortable environment for shoppers. People tend to spend more time at a place when the atmosphere is warm and lively. They may also consider playing songs in different languages so as to surprise the non-local visitors and to leave them a better impression.

Second, the use of language should definitely be improved. Based on our investigation, the mall has an attempt to make bilingualism as medium of communication as we could find bilingual directory, signposts in the mall. However, we then think that the mall should adhere to that practice and provide English translation for non-local people in its promotional posters as well. For example, posters for Saturday Shopping Fever, a day which can obviously be enjoyed by both local and non-local people should be in bilingual. It will for sure encourage more non-local visitors to come again when they feel welcome to stay. The mall should also encourage its tenants to follow suit in order to create a better bilingual environment together.

Last but not least, the mall may extend its target customer from mainly Hong Kongers to non-local people. As the Telford Plaza has already established reputation and it is famous for its wide variety of choices of stores and good restaurants, the mall may simply try to create a more international image by adopting new policies which help to attract more non-local visitors. For example, the Plaza can organise event to celebrate different traditional festivals in a visitor-friendly way. It may provide translated information to foreign visitors so that they can learn more about Chinese culture and to share the joy with local people.

To sum up…
After a thorough analysis made by our group, we would summarise that the Telford Plaza is a rather localised shopping mall and it is not as tourist-friendly as we have assumed. We not only saw little foreign languages in the Telford Plaza, we hardly heard of any other languages in the mall throughout the whole trip. Although most of the stores are bilingual, so are their sales persons, the mall itself falls short of expectations in terms of its language practice. Furthermore, if Telford plaza is compared to other malls such as Elements, the IFC and the Festival Walk, it also lacks the necessary universality. To strengthen its image, we suggest it re-examining the language policy and the current dull atmosphere and we look forward to reading and hearing Telford Plaza again with a brand new impressive image.

Sheung Wan

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:34:32 CST

Sheung Wan Sensation

Get Started!

On 12th October, a sunny morning, the four of us decided to put away our assignments and went to explore the world we live in. We went to Sheung Wan, a place that all of us had not been before, yet desiring to. We used to think that Sheung Wan was an old place selling dried seafood. However, after our visit, we all found it very different from what we thought......Many people might also have the similar wrong perception of Sheung Wan, so our article will be a reliable source for you to know better about the familiar yet mysterious Sheung Wan.

Long time ago, Sheung Wan was a place in Hong Kong famous for trading. A lot of foreigners such as the British and Americans, who were regarded as the rich at that time, lived there for their businesses. As a result, when we stroll on the streets today, we can still find some historical buildings in western styles built at that time. Nowadays, Sheung Wan is a place not only famous for its commercial industry but also for its travelling industry. Its unique cultural mix attracts tourists all over the world.

As some "tourists" from Hong Kong, our trip to Sheung Wan started in a Cantonese-style restaurant. After we finished our delicious lunch including Hainan chicken with rice and chicken rice doria, we were all cheered up and all of us couldn't wait to explore something more about Sheung Wan. Since Western Market was the most noticeable and typical place in Sheung Wan, we'll mainly focus on what we discovered there in the following essay from three aspects -- language use in Sheung Wan, the landscape, and our experiences.

Language

As an area has both Western and Chinese cultures, Sheung Wan is a place rich in languages. To know how Sheung Wan was interpreted, it's better to start from the use of languages.

First, let’s look at what languages can people see and read in Sheung Wan.

Chinese, without doubt, was the one we saw almost everywhere. We saw many restaurants, small grocery stores with their names written in Chinese. But we discovered something special.
In Sheung Wan, those Chinese characters were very harmonious with the environment because of the fonts used.

For example, there was a restaurant called The Grand Stage in Western Market. As what we saw in the picture on the right , the three Chinese characters were written in a font that we don't usually see elsewhere. That font was of the 30s Shanghai style which reminded us of the glamorous old days. By seeing this, we could even imagine an exciting night club where singers were singing old songs and people in elegant outfits were drinking and dancing.
Another exam ple was the direction board inside the western market. There were four Chinese characters on that board. Each of them was used to describe the theme of each floor in Western Market. These characters were all Chinese calligraphy. They were the symbol of the traditional culture in Western Market.

- Also, it was very necessary to mention the clothing shops in Western Market. They sold the clothes to make Qipao. Some of the clothes were in plain patterns and cold colors while others were in luxurious patterns and passionate colors. The n ames of those shops were pretty special. Look at the picture, the name itself helped to create the atmosphere of the past. We felt like going back to history. It was a really nice experience for us to be there.

Apart from Chinese, English could also be widely seen in Sheung Wan. What we found most special was the name of a street, the Possession Street. Why people called it Possession Street? We had to go back to 1841 to know the reason. On 25 January 1841, Charles Elliot of Britain and Kei Sin of Qing Dynasty signed a Convention of Chuenpeh. A navy official Edward Bel cher led a fleet to land Hong Kong. The surveyors of fleet found an elevated plain near the shore suitable for camping in the west side of the island. A road was built from the shore to the camp. The road became Possession Street later[1]. As we can see, the name of the street was not ordinary. In fact, it reminded people of the humiliating history of China when we had to give our lands to foreign invaders. Nowadays, the Chinese name of this street was “水坑口街”, which was named after a nullah beside. It had no connection with “Possession”. That was why we thought the English name “Possession Street” was precious and people had to remember its meaning.

After strolling on the streets for some time, we saw a lot more languages.

For example, we saw a bakery named "bäckerei Café". "Bäckerei" is a German word which means baked goods. Right beside the Western Market, this shop was full of the exotic atmosphere. People in that shop seemed to be very relaxed and out of the mundane world surround it. Every time we passed there, we just couldn't help looking inside because of the smells of the rich coffee and the fresh bread……It was so appealing!

We also saw the nam e of a street written in French. That was the “Des Voeux Road”. We liked the name “Des Voeux” a lot because in French, it means “wish”. This name also had an origin. It was named after the 10th British Colonial Governor of Hong Kong, William Des Voeux. During his tenure, Hong Kong Electric Holdings was established, providing electricity supplies for Hong Kong Island. Also, the Peak Tram began operation during this time, providing relatively affordable transportation for people living on The Peak[2]. To memorize him, the road was named.
We also found another coffee shop. But this time, the name was written in Italian. Different from the German one, this shop was very energetic, same as the passionate people in the Mediterranean region. The shop was bright and colorful, maki ng people passing by feel cheered up.

We felt so surprised that in such a small area in Sheung Wan, we discovered so many languages. It best proved that Sheung Wan was a place rich in history. Because it was one of the first areas British occupied, its colonial background was more evident than other places in Hong Kong. That was why many names had its origins back to centuries ago. As time goes by, the history of Sheung Wan has already became its unique feature because not many places have such a long history as Sheung Wan has. It added to Sheung Wan’s charm.

Landscape

Beside languages, Sheung Wan was also interpreted by its landscape. Western Market was the best example. For instance, the architectural design of Western Market, products we could buy in its shopping mall helped to interpret Sheung Wan. They represented Sheung Wan visually. We thought it can also be a kind of "language". It just took another form.

Architectures

In Sheung Wan, there were many buildings of different styles. Some were contemporary ones such as the Sheung Wan Civic Centre while some of them were classic Western style. Western Market was one of the greatest landmark in Sheung Wan. The architectural design of this building was remarkable in many ways. This building was well-known for its red bricks and granite band in Edwardian style which was very popular in the old England (1901-1918). Cast iron structural columns, steel roof truss and the large local quarried granite steps to the corner staircase showed the excellence of constructional technique at the time. We thought it was a symbolic building in contemporary Hong Kong. We saw some Chinese pans on this building which best showed the combination of oriental features with the early Western style[3]. This type of architectural design reminded us of the colonial background of Hong Kong before 1997. The building was really an art work and it was a useful tool of communication between Sheung Wan and visitors. Just by glancing at it, people will immediately know its colonial culture. It was so amazing to know that even architectures could tell stories!

Products in Western Market

Not only the architectural design of the market helped to interpret Sheung Wan, but also the products helped to shape people's impression. Western Market was divided into 4 parts, The Art (3F), The Food (2F), The Cloth (1F) and The Shops (GF). People may wonder: “it is small, can we find so many things there?” Definitely! There were various products in the Western Market that you can't find elsewhere and they were presented in a nice way.

For example, on the ground floor, there were a l ot of shops selling souvenirs such as KMB bus figures and traditional stamps. There was even one shop selling the certificate of honor made in the Cultural Revolution. It was so rare to find a store like this nowadays in Hong Kong. We think that the store was located in Western Market mainly because

Western Market matches the cultural background of the products and helps to deliver the traditional Chinese culture. These souvenirs could be used to reveal the former Hong Kong and mainland China to westerners. Even though they did not understand Chinese, they could know some of the Chinese culture from these products.

Look at the right picture, weren't these traditional Chinese handmade shoes extraordinary? We saw many foreigners interested in them. These products could also tell the western people about the Chinese culture. These delicate hand crafts were the most vivid examples of the art culture of China.

There were also some nicely designed posters in Western Market. Designers hoped that the messages could be activated by pictures and buyers would pay attention to their products. For example, in the right picture, the designer used some colorful clothes and the word "花布街" with Chinese style floral designs to promote the products. No matter people understand Chinese or not, they will soon realize that this is a poster for clothes. As we can see, pictures could facilitate the function of language. It was much easier to get the meaning of this poster by using pictures rather than use words alone.

Our experiences

Current social and cultural issues are inseparable from language either. Imagine a language that can’t be written, like sound, sign and movement, can transfer meanings from sender to receiver as well.

There is absolutely no silence around Western Market. Here, We'll show what we experienced around the Western Market.

Next to Western Market, there are a pair of parallel tracks leading tourists from Central to Sheung Wan. Tram tracks are always distinguished features of Hong Kong Island. We stopped by the roadside, waiting a “ding ding” to pass by. “Ding ding” is the code name of trams. We waited under the tram depot on Des Voeux Road Central in order to capture such sounds. After a while, we witnessed a young woman talking on her cell phone, using a hands-free attachment. Not only was she talking very loudly, but also she was gesturing broadly. She was talking continuously, and seemed oblivious to the red traffic light. ‘Ding-ding’, ‘ding-ding’, a tram driver alerted her to give way instantly but that woman kept sticking to her mobile. Luckily, the tram was slow enough not to crash on that selfish lady.

Before going to Sheung Wan, we used to think tram was a more environmental-friendly transportation. We thought it's clean and quiet.
Surprisingly, every time the trams came, we heard them roaring. By steering series of wheels against the tracks, a squeal was caused. Because tram wheels don’t turn, noise goes sharper and more deafening when there are tight turns. There is a Chinese slang, ‘Good to meet, hard to live together’. We wondered how residents in Sheung Wan stand the noise at night. Anyway, we got to leave.

Feeling by ourselves, there were tactile paving connecting the footpath and the tram depot platform. As we all know, such a system is used widely to assist blind pedestrians. If a walk crosses or adjoins a vehicle way, the boundaries between the areas are defined by a continuous detectable warning. Each paving is a compact bundle of data, conveying information by its shape and pattern. For instance, truncated domes could be seen on the waiting area next to a zebra-crossing, and raised strips indicate that there is a straight path. Tactile paving is not merely unstructured mat. It is real language. So learning how to utilize it is a task similar to learning to understand any spoken language.

Walking along the tactile paving, we saw a crowd of Southern Asian in a square. Their language is distinctive from Cantonese. From listening to their strong accent, we made judgments about their background, culture and nationality.

Hey-lala-hey-lala hey-lala-hey-la! Hey-lala-hey-lala hey-lala-hey-la!

We paused and questioned. What was that sound? Someone was applauding hands, someone
was yelling winsomely. Some pedestrians stopped by saying that was wacky, while some local residents treated it merely as a usual thing. We waited for a while, and then they danced again until the tape ran out. Between the beats, we heard them laughing and singing
in lyrics that we couldn’t understand at all. Apart from the odd twists of their tongues, we could hear their heartbeats. Their laughter disclosed their well-built friendships and strong personalities. Even one smile was conveying something to others. It can be happiness, or it can be encouragement. This is the way of language, and it has always been.

During our visit, we interviewed some passengers about languages they use.

As we can see, English is the most universal language people use. Wherever you are from, you’ll be able to communicate with people in Hong Kong. We can also draw a conclusion that many people can have a good command of languages used in his or her neighboring countries. For example, Mr. Woo Jung from Korea can also speak Japanese and Boxem from Swiss can also speak French and German apart from English and their mother tongues. It’s very interesting to talk to so many foreigners all over the world in Hong Kong. The world is becoming smaller and smaller and languages should never be barriers of people’s communication. This interview is a really precious memory.

Let's sum up

Sheung Wan is a special place where the new meets the old and the west meets the oriental. We love it! It was a really unforgettable experience! We could discover so many languages, though some of them took unusual forms. Before our visit to Sheung Wan, we seldom consider landscape as a kind of language. Indeed, as what we had mentioned, building designs and collections of products can both remind us of histories of old Sheung Wan. Sounds like 'ding ding' and laughter are sometimes unappealing to us, yet all conveying meanings. Languages are no longer limited as words, aren't they?

[1] Possession Street. Retrieved on October 24, 2008, from Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_Street
[2] William Des Voeux. Retrieved on October 27, 2008, from Wikipedia Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Des_V%C5%93ux#Governor_of_Hong_Kong

[3] Western Market. Retrieved on October 20, 2008, Website: http://www.westernmarket.com.hk/eng/about.htm

Tung Chung Conclusion

EN2707 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:33:39 CST

Conclusion
Conclusion
‘Language use’ in different people’s mind has different meanings. It may be a tool to have intercommunication, it may be something difficult to handle, it may be artistic like language use in poems, literatures, or graffiti.

Apart from the above common meanings of ‘Language use’, we have another refresh finding in Tung Chung. From our perspective, we found that language use have an inextricable link with the tourism and religious. However, English plays different roles in the above two aspects.

In HK, tourism is an important industry which receives several millions foreign travelers each year so the required standard of communication retain high in Hong Kong.

All in all, language use can be very practical and widely use over the tourism in Hong Kong. We are proud of the fluent spoken English of most of the Hong Kongers as salesperson who can speak bilingual or even trilingual can be easily found in Hong Kong. Besides, bilingual announcement, roads signs and maps are easily accessible for tourism all over Hong Kong.

At the same time, the language use in religion is consecrated and crucial as the translations of the holy scripts influence the promotion and preservation greatly. For example, the bible is translated in hundreds of different languages that the Christian religion can spread across different countries and more people can know more about the religion.

Generally speaking, we should set great store by language uses as it is an important to our daily life. It is so significant and valuable to our daily life as we always have an opportunity to take differnent languages as medium to communicate with the outside world on the business field as well as the cultural preservation.

Dornyei, Z. & Csizer, K. (2005). The effects of intercultural contact and tourism on language attitutes and language learning motivation. In vol. 24 No.4Journal of language and social psychology(pp. 327-357). Nottingham, United Kingdom & Budapest, Hungary:Sage Publications.

Dunn, D. (2002) Venice observed: The traveler, the tourist, the post-tourist and British television. Paper presented at Tourism Research 2002, University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Wales, 4–7 September.

Kachru, B.B. (1990). ‘Preface to the Second Edition.’ In B.B. Kachru (Ed), Other Tongue: English Across Cultures (pp. xix-xxii) Chicago: University Of Illinois Press.

1. A salesman in Apliu street ( Male, about 50, Chinese)	Answer: I can use Cantonese because the majority of consumers is Hong Kong people. It is no problem for me to communicate with them as Cantonese is my mother tongue. Not only Cantonese, Hakka and Fukien are used to greet with my neighbors. However, there are still visitors from foreign countries. My English is bad and just can speak simple English, for example “Hello!”, “Welcome!”. To avoid communication obstacle, I usually write the price on each good. They can know how much they are without asking me. Sometimes, I need to use body language to assist with me.
2. A visitor ( Female, about 40, Australian)	Answer: Being a foreigner, I find that communicate with non-English speakers is very challenging for me, especially when I am shopping in Apliu street. Most people in there are unable to understand English so I have to use body language to communicate with them. When I walk along Apliu street, I always notice some promoters are doing demonstration outside the shop, but they all speak in Cantonese, I feel confused with what they are presenting about.
3. A student ( Male, about 20, Chinese)	Answer: As I am a Chinese, I use Cantonese to communicate with most people in Sham Shui Po. Meanwhile, I can speak English and have some knowledge about Japanese so I am willing to offer help when I see visitors come across communication problem.
4. A student ( Female, about 18, Chinese)	Answer: Cantonese is the most common language for me to communicate with the people I meet in Sham Shui Po. To enhance my English standard, I always talk with westerners and help the hawkers to do the translation.
5. A salesman in Golden Computer Centre ( Male, about 25, Chinese)	Answer: If I notice that westerners are interested in the products, I am confident to step forward and use English to introduce the latest products to them. Though my English may not be fluent enough, I believe that they can still get the information. On the other hand, for the locals, I use another way to communicate with them. In order to attract people to walk in the shop and ask for the price, I usually use crosses (e.g.$2XXX) or just cross out the original price to show the value of products. It is a unique communication method in Sham Shui Po.

Happy Valley Racecourse 360º	The bustling Happy Valley Racecourse during the Oktoberfest. A DJ is playing Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" to the crowd. Don't you just want to dance to the music?
The Race from Above	A complete race viewing from above. We stood there on the 7th floor and enjoy the quietness away from the cheering and booing crowd below.
The Winners!	There we were right next to the track when the winning horses and riders soared in front of us to receive congratulations from race-goers. It was pretty amazing to see the horses this close and listen to the ground rumble when they passed us!